


Lavender

by KuroFae



Series: Small Moments [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Background Shiro/Matt, Domestic Fluff, Family, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, there's a baby :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 08:45:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11249667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuroFae/pseuds/KuroFae
Summary: The first time she touched him, Keith’s entire body collapsed like a dying star, but then exploded into a supernova of newfound love. One tiny hand pressed to his cheek like a warm, dry kiss, and Keith pressed his lips to her forehead.





	Lavender

The first time she touched him, Keith’s entire body collapsed like a dying star, but then exploded into a supernova of newfound love. One tiny hand pressed to his cheek like a warm, dry kiss, and Keith pressed his lips to her forehead.

 

She looks like Hunk, even if he disagrees. Her eyes are wide and round and warm and almost pop out of her head when she’s interested in something. The short dark curls, plastered to her head, still thin little strands, are too brown to be like Keith’s, but perfect for Hunk’s. Her skin is darker than his, Keith will admit, but they both glow, bronze tones picked up in the light of the dining room.

 

She’s so incredibly small, too, and that’s something Keith can’t get over. His arms, scarred from countless battles and muscled from wielding a sword for half his life, dwarf her. She hardly weighs anything, as if she actually is a dream, feather-light, about to float away at any moment. Keith hugs her closer. When Hunk held her, he could hold her one hand, his fingers supporting her head and neck. He never actually only used one hand, of course. He held her against his chest, and his other hand formed a protective wall so she wouldn’t fall the other way. When Keith had first seen him holding her like that, his eyebrows were knit together in concentration, and he walked down the stairs one at time, almost overly careful. By the time he got to the bottom, he’d relaxed significantly, but Keith could still see the absolute fear in his eyes. It wasn’t about dropping her so much as it was about how  _ new _ this all was.

 

Keith understands that perfectly, lying in bed and staring at the dark ceiling. Hunk is next to him, asleep, chest gently rising and falling. On his other side, at the edge of the room, she sleeps too, a tiny lump silhouetted by the nightlight in the corner. If Keith stares long enough, and relaxes enough to let his night vision kick in just a little, he can see her chest rising and falling, right in time with Hunks. It’s so new, all of this.  _ She’s _ so new, so fragile. Keith has seen what the universe can do to people. It can break them, destroy them, shatter their entire being. She lives in this universe, just like him. And Keith is angry, lying next to his husband at 1:43 in the morning on a Thursday night, his heart beating fast in his chest like an animal, trapped. He’s angry, because no matter what he’s done, what he will do, he knows it will never be safe enough for her. He must be gripping the sheets, or his pulse must be hammering into Hunk’s rib cage, or he must have said something outloud, because Hunk rolls over. An arm is slipped around Keith’s waist, a thumb rubbing small circles onto his hip. Warm lips meet his jaw, and Hunk mumbles, so very quietly, that maybe they’d never do enough individually, but there’s two of them. 

 

Keith’s life soon becomes something unreal, something he never could have imagined himself doing, back when he lived in a shack in the desert. He’s got Hunk’s sweater tied around his waist, a headband pushing his hair back, and he’s elbow deep in a sink full of suds and bottles. He catches his reflection on the silver of the tap and can’t help but laugh. It’s just so domestic. He loves it, all of it. Washing the dishes and the bottles, continuing to proof the house whenever Hunk reads something new online, changing diapers, waking up at one or two or three or four in the morning, or on bad nights, even every hour, to shush her and sing the lullabies that Allura had taught them, burping her, walking to the store with her strapped to his chest, warm and safe and small. Keith loves everything about parenthood that all the magazines and movies said he should hate. All the sounds she makes are proof that she is real, that  _ this  _ is real, from the cooing and the babble to the bawling and screaming, and even when her face is dark cherry red and there is snot and tears pouring down her face, and Keith has only had two hours of sleep, he loves  _ this _ . He loves  _ her _ . Hunk comes into the kitchen, her sleeping form tight against his chest. They only look at each other for a moment, Keith covered in soap, with his hair pinned back and his husband’s sweater, and Hunk, with a swaddling blanket over his shoulder, his hair pulled back into the tiniest ponytail, holding her against his chest. They do a once over of each other, and then Hunk’s face splits into a huge grin, and so does Keith’s, and then they’re both trying to stifle their laughter on a warm Sunday afternoon with sunlight streaming in through the windows.

 

Keith’s only been keenly aware of the passing of time twice. Once, it dragged by, so slowly that he’d driven himself insane, nails digging into his skin and his hair, forcing himself to spend more and more of the time, flowing like tar, out in the canyons. It had been hours out on a stolen bike that felt like weeks, days studying the carvings that felt like years, and seconds of watching the same news article, refresh, play, refresh, play, refresh, play, that felt like a lifetime. The second time, it flies by too fast. Hunk’s back at work, but home for most of the day still, now with leftovers from the restaurant piled in his arms when Keith opens the door with his foot. In one hand he holds the cat, an escape artist, and in the other he holds her on his hip. Now, she’s walking, or, toddling, or something, but she’s up on two legs, and there’s a mad rush to buy a baby gate and cushions and mats for the floors and actual baby shoes (the old ones were rarely worn, and mostly sat on the windowsill, adorably small). Now Keith is back at work, too, but he can’t focus. There’s a wrench in his hand and a bike before him, but he’s thinking about how the hell he’s going to be able to get her to eat the god forsaken carrots tonight. Lance comes over that night, and she opens her mouth at his command and swallows at his command and smiles up at him with chunks of boiled carrot caught in her teeth and Keith really loves Lance. He’s some kind of miracle worker. 

 

Now she’s talking, albeit late. She’d stopped babbling and Hunk had called almost every speech pathologist in the state, always to reassurance that it was fine. One day she opened her mouth, and asked where Uncle Lance was. Keith called him a furious rage, that she had learned his name before his or Hunks, and Lance had laughed so hard he fell off his bed. But now Keith gets to wake up with a terrifying goblin at the foot of his bed, whispering over and over for him. She wants a glass of water, and apologizes for startling him, and Keith carries her down the stairs and watches the sun rise as she sleeps, curled up on his lap, glass of water untouched on the coffee table. Hunk wakes up, and kisses the top of his head on the way for coffee. Keith smiles. Everything is warm.

 

It’s a regular day, midsummer, cicada, dandelion puff, and waterpark season, when Hunk plants a kiss on the back of his neck and wraps his arms around his waist. She’s running around on her stubby legs, shrieking, hat askew but with enough sunscreen to protect her. It’s too hot to be cuddling, and Hunk should know that. They’re both seated on the grass, shirtless and sweaty. Keith’s bangs are pulled up again, and he’s got a fan in one hand and a bottle of aloe juice in the other, and all of that is useless when Hunk’s entire body is draped over his back. Keith doesn’t shrug him off, though, as it’s been awhile since he’s been so relaxed. Shiro and Matt had finally stopped stressing about their surrogate now that she’s given birth, which means the rest of them could stop stressing as well. Well, Shiro had called Keith in blind panic the night before, the sound of a newborn wailing in the background, but since then, everything’s been calm for a solid sixteen hours.

 

Hunk clings to him, through dinner prep and playtime and even naptime, and Keith’s beginning to feel that he’s turning into a koala like in the kids books. It’s never ending cuddles, and she even begins to get jealous, one she wakes up, face puffy and sleep-warm. 

 

Keith watches Hunk’s expression as she snuggles under Keith’s arm, eyes open and warm and so full of love, and Keith thinks that this is the height of his life, right here, in this very moment.

 

That night, though, he’s proven wrong. Hunk still has his hands on him, and the moment Keith is out of his clothes and into clean boxers, he’s picked up (he’s gotta admit,  _ nice _ ), and tossed onto the bed. Hunk kneels over him, and leans over to whisper in his ear.

 

“ _ Let’s have another one. _ ”

 

And yeah, this is definitely the height of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> [Follow me on Tumblr!](http://kuro-paladin.tumblr.com)


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